Advanced Materials APC and Open Access: What Wiley Charges for One of Materials Science's Top Journals
Advanced Materials charges ~$5,500-$6,000 for open access. Hybrid Wiley journal, DEAL agreements, IF ~27. Full cost breakdown and how it compares to ACS Nano.
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Quick answer: Advanced Materials charges roughly $5,500-$6,000 for gold open access. It's a hybrid journal from Wiley-VCH, so publishing through the subscription track costs nothing. The OA fee is steep but often covered by Wiley DEAL and Read & Publish agreements, particularly for researchers at German, UK, and Scandinavian institutions.
What Advanced Materials charges
Advanced Materials is published by Wiley-VCH (Wiley's German science imprint) and carries one of the higher APCs in the materials science space:
Currency | Amount |
|---|---|
USD | ~$5,500-$6,000 |
EUR | ~€5,000-€5,200 |
GBP | ~£4,300-£4,500 |
The APC varies slightly depending on article type (Communications vs. Research Articles vs. Reviews) and the specific pricing tier in effect. Wiley adjusts APCs annually, and Advanced Materials sits in the premium tier.
With an impact factor of approximately 27.4, Advanced Materials is one of the most prestigious and expensive journals in its field. The APC reflects that positioning. You're paying for access to an audience that includes virtually every active materials scientist, and for the signal that comes with the journal's brand.
There are no submission fees, no page charges, and no color figure fees. Online supplementary information is free to host.
The subscription track: no fee required
Advanced Materials is hybrid. This is worth repeating because the APC number can cause panic:
- Subscription track (default): Your article appears on Wiley Online Library behind the paywall. Institutional subscribers access it. You pay $0.
- Open access track (optional): Your article is immediately free worldwide. You pay the APC.
A substantial portion of Advanced Materials articles are still published via the subscription route. Materials science has strong institutional library coverage, meaning most researchers at universities can already access the journal. For authors without an OA mandate, the subscription track works fine.
That said, the OA landscape in materials science is shifting. European funders increasingly require immediate open access, and the Wiley DEAL agreements make it free for many European authors to choose OA. The proportion of OA articles in Advanced Materials has grown steadily since these agreements launched.
Wiley DEAL and Read & Publish agreements
Wiley has negotiated transformative agreements with consortia in multiple countries. Advanced Materials, as a flagship Wiley-VCH title, is included in all of them.
The most significant is the German DEAL-Wiley agreement. Germany has the largest concentration of materials science research in Europe, and Advanced Materials has historically attracted a high volume of German-authored papers. Under DEAL, any corresponding author at a German research institution gets the APC covered automatically.
Active agreements in 2026:
Region / Consortium | Coverage | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Germany (DEAL) | Full APC coverage | Covers all Wiley and Wiley-VCH journals |
UK (Jisc) | Full coverage | UK universities and research bodies |
Netherlands (UKB) | Full coverage | Dutch institutions |
Austria (KEMOE) | Full coverage | Austrian universities |
Sweden (Bibsam) | Full coverage | Swedish institutions |
Norway (Unit) | Full coverage | Norwegian universities |
United States | Varies by institution | Some individual university deals |
China | Limited | A few institutional arrangements |
Germany deserves special attention here. The DEAL-Wiley agreement was one of the first and largest national transformative deals in academic publishing. It covers every Wiley journal, including all Wiley-VCH titles. For German materials scientists, Advanced Materials is effectively free to publish OA.
The US has no national Wiley deal. Individual universities (some UC campuses, for instance) have negotiated agreements, but coverage is patchy. Always check with your library.
Waivers and discounts
Automatic waivers: Wiley provides fee support for authors in Research4Life-eligible countries. Low-income nations get full waivers. Lower-middle-income countries receive significant discounts.
Hardship waivers: Available on request at the time of acceptance. Wiley evaluates these individually. Researchers at well-funded Western institutions are unlikely to receive them.
No society discounts for Advanced Materials specifically. Some Wiley journals offer discounts through affiliated learned societies, but Advanced Materials doesn't have this arrangement.
Wiley Author Services: Wiley occasionally bundles editing services with APC offers, but these are promotional and not systematic discounts.
Funder mandate compliance
Funder/Policy | Compliant? | Route |
|---|---|---|
Plan S (cOAlition S) | Yes | Gold OA with CC BY license |
NIH Public Access | Yes | Gold OA or green OA (accepted manuscript after embargo) |
UKRI | Yes | Gold OA with CC BY |
ERC | Yes | Gold OA with CC BY |
DFG (German Research Foundation) | Yes | Gold OA (covered by DEAL) |
Horizon Europe | Yes | Gold OA with CC BY |
For Plan S compliance, select CC BY at the licensing stage. Wiley offers CC BY-NC and CC BY-NC-ND as alternatives, but those don't satisfy cOAlition S requirements.
Green OA is permitted with an embargo. Wiley's standard policy allows self-archiving of the accepted manuscript (not the published version) in institutional repositories after 12 months. Some agreements shorten this to immediate self-archiving rights.
How Advanced Materials compares on cost
Journal | APC (USD) | Model | IF (2024) | Publisher | Annual Volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Advanced Materials | ~$5,500-$6,000 | Hybrid | ~27.4 | Wiley-VCH | ~2,500 |
Nature Materials | $12,850 | Hybrid | ~38.0 | Springer Nature | ~300 |
ACS Nano | ~$5,000-$6,500 | Hybrid | ~15.8 | ACS | ~3,000 |
Advanced Functional Materials | ~$5,000-$5,500 | Hybrid | ~18.5 | Wiley-VCH | ~3,500 |
Nano Letters | ~$5,000-$6,000 | Hybrid | ~9.6 | ACS | ~2,000 |
This comparison reveals the competitive landscape in materials science publishing.
Nature Materials is the most selective and most expensive. With an IF of 38 and fewer than 300 articles per year, it's a different category entirely. The $12,850 APC is justified by selectivity, and most authors have it covered through Springer Nature R&P agreements.
ACS Nano from the American Chemical Society is the closest competitor to Advanced Materials in terms of prestige and scope. Its APC is in the same range. ACS has its own institutional agreements, separate from Wiley's. For nanomaterials work, the choice between the two often comes down to where your subfield publishes.
Advanced Functional Materials is Advanced Materials' sibling journal from Wiley-VCH. It has a lower IF (18.5) and slightly lower APC. Papers that don't quite reach the bar for Advanced Materials often end up here instead. Both are covered by the same Wiley agreements, so the cost difference is irrelevant for covered institutions.
Nano Letters from ACS has seen its IF decline in recent years (now around 9.6), which positions it below both Advanced Materials and ACS Nano. Its APC is comparable, though. Nano Letters is still well-regarded for short, high-impact communications in nanoscience.
What makes Advanced Materials distinctive
The Communication format. Advanced Materials is famous for its short-format Communications, typically 4-6 pages with limited figures. This format rewards concise, high-impact findings. The journal also publishes full Research Articles, Reviews, and Progress Reports, but the Communication is the flagship format and tends to attract the highest citations.
Speed of publication. For a selective journal, Advanced Materials moves fast. First decisions typically come within 2-4 weeks. Accepted Communications can appear online within days of acceptance through the Early View system. This speed is a major draw in the competitive materials science landscape, where being first to publish a result matters.
Wiley-VCH brand in materials science. Wiley-VCH has a uniquely strong position in materials science through the "Advanced" journal family: Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Energy Materials, Advanced Science, and several others. Publishing in this family gives authors visibility across the Wiley-VCH materials science ecosystem.
IF trends. Advanced Materials' impact factor has been remarkably stable, hovering between 25 and 30 for several years. Some competing journals have seen significant IF fluctuations (Nano Letters dropped from 12+ to under 10), but Advanced Materials has maintained its position in the top tier.
Hidden costs and practical notes
- No page charges or overlength fees for any article type
- No color figure fees. All figures are published in full color online
- Supporting Information is hosted free on Wiley Online Library
- VAT applies for some European authors (15-25% added to the APC)
- Reprints are available for purchase but rarely needed
- LaTeX and Word are both accepted. Wiley-VCH provides templates for its Advanced Materials family. Using the correct template avoids production delays.
- Cover images: Advanced Materials features cover images prominently. If your paper is selected for the cover, producing the cover art is your responsibility (and can involve additional graphic design costs, though many labs create covers in-house)
The practical decision
Advanced Materials is the right choice when:
- Your materials science finding is genuinely novel and high-impact
- You need fast turnaround on a top-tier publication
- Your institution has a Wiley agreement covering the APC, or you're publishing via subscription
- The Communication format suits your results (concise, striking, well-supported)
Consider alternatives if:
- Your budget can't handle $5,500+ and your institution doesn't have a Wiley deal
- Your work is more specialized (ACS Nano for nanomaterials, Advanced Energy Materials for energy applications)
- You need a more selective prestige signal (Nature Materials is the tier above)
Before submitting to a journal at this selectivity level, make sure your manuscript meets the high bar. Reviewers at Advanced Materials check novelty, impact, and presentation rigorously. Run a free readiness scan to catch the problems that lead to desk rejection at top-tier journals.
For more context on how journal impact factors factor into submission decisions, see our detailed guide.
Reference library
Use the core publishing datasets alongside this guide
This article answers one part of the publishing decision. The reference library covers the recurring questions that usually come next: how selective journals are, how long review takes, and what the submission requirements look like across journals.
Dataset / reference guide
Peer Review Timelines by Journal
Reference-grade journal timeline data that authors, labs, and writing centers can cite when discussing realistic review timing.
Dataset / benchmark
Biomedical Journal Acceptance Rates
A field-organized acceptance-rate guide that works as a neutral benchmark when authors are deciding how selective to target.
Reference table
Journal Submission Specs
A high-utility submission table covering word limits, figure caps, reference limits, and formatting expectations.
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